I was chatting with Myra or Neeva or someone at the author event about sailing. I was encouraged to work out a sailing date for creatives at MU and a week from this Saturday, April 17th, after 8:30 am SLT works for me. If I can get something of a consensus about time, we can plan to meet at the Royal Yacht Club, rez sailboats and have a sailing party. I can carry eight folks on my boat, but if there are other sailors among us, the more the merrier.

I would love to participate and can carry folks as well. The only thing I have to check is how to prevent schedule collisions on that Friday because 10 am SLT I want to be at the University to visit the VPA 198 meeting. But if I see it right, we do not have a fix time for the sailing event yet.

I am not sure why, but I seemed having missed it as I just saw a sailing photo in Neeva’s Flickr stream. I have been on campus, though, to see if anyone would be around and thought that you may have canceled the event.

Great things said here Paypa! MU really is bursting at the seams with activity and I havent seen THIS much going on anywhere else at LEA, as wonderdul as they are (and as a side note it really is fantastic to be involved with an LEA sim so up close after years of being a fan). These six months are a bit of an experimental frenzy and by June a grant would harness the results just as the active crowd have found their stride.. Loving MU in all its creative madness!

“I would love to see one of the big educational groups in SL take a look at the “business model” MU has set forth and adopt it. Hell, one of them ought to extend the grant. Izzy may have already made reservations for her nervous breakdown in July (I know I have!), but that shouldn’t stop things from making MU a permanent fixture in SL.”

YES! This place is amazing, and i think it should be a permanent thing as well. Perhaps we should have a letter writing campaign. 🙂 I too don’t even wanna think about when this all goes away. I came here not really knowing what to think. Now I’m creating and having the best time. That’s pretty amazing for self serve education.

The expectation is to use the very thoughtful questions Strawberry Singh provided and answer them. I was working on a response without the questions when I came upon the video. It’s powerful enough on its own but I dislike merely reblogging something without an added value, so it was serendipitous.

“We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” —Marianne Williamson (often credited to Nelson Mandella)”

Great quote. If only we would concentrate on shining our light every day instead of squashing the light of others.

Nice distillation of Anthea’s event Paypaback! You really captured the essence. I’m pretty sure Anthea Sharp will end up linking to it from her social media.

If she does, do you really want to amplify Michael’s newb quote about how creepy and pervy all avatars are as the lead in your post? There is a good chance this post ends up getting read by more non-SLers than SLers. Anyway, worth thinking about.

I don’t usually change a post so radically, Neeva, but I’ll make an exception because I may have more to say about that guy anyway. His website is execrable in terms of usability/readability. Or I may just let it go. I just posted about making mean comments, so best to keep quiet. Anyway, thanks for the heads up.

Hi neighbor! I do have a question for you, Paypabak. How do you manage identity across all these modalities? Is that important to you? I used to think SL was great because it had many media all together, kind of all-in-one. I’ve not done as much blogging over the years as you have (and now playing catch-up). But I’m interested to know how platform-hopping affects your sense of self. From an archival standpoint as well (clearly you’ve done some reflection with this post), how do you consider the multiplicity of self and place in virtual space?

Thanks for the blog post. I always enjoy reading your thoughts. It is also really convenient and appreciated when our bloggers post a link to their writing on MU talk.

@Tiffany. really thought provoking comment. For me, just this year has seen Neeva-self leaping beyond SL with my own email. Then MU enticed me to add Flickr and visit Pearl and paypabak and your blogs, then avatar friends have got me on Gtalk and Slack. SL used to seem like the entire world to Neeva-self. Now it seems like one (beloved) dimension in Neeva’s wider multiverse.
im still sorting out what that means to identity and the experience of being multiple.

I have heard of a novel where the premise is the person’s avatar shows up at her front door in RL with suitcases and moves in. How would your avatar be as a housemate? Would he or she get along with your real life self? How would they be the same or different?

Great question, Tiffany, and I love your response, Pearl! I definitely have this sense of digiphrenia (I am fearfully attracted to this: http://www.rushkoff.com/present-shock/) managing these identities but that’s part of what I meant by it keeps one honest. Managing fantasy identities over all of these platforms either cracks you up or it forces you into a wholeness that sustains you.

I absolutely adore Vaneeesa Blaylock! Talk about your Mistress of Multiple Identities! Every week she has a different name, and that is the unscratched surface. I keep telling myself, “I must resist, I must resist!” She’s like the effing Borg with her invitations to this or that shiny new social platform! (Pearl mentions Slack, so help me, God!) If I met that woman in first life and she is anything like her avatar, she would dazzle and wear me out in ten minutes. On a good day, reinforced with coffee and properly dressed. I blame her for this present predicament of being Blogger-in-Residence at MU. (The use of “blame” in the previous sentence is equivalent to “thank, or to give credit.”)

As I try to relate in my post, with Flickr, Plurk, Second Life and Tumblr, I manage well enough fairly well-defined avenues for expressing myself with media with which I feel comfortable and which fulfill my desire to share my aesthetics and Slife. Medici U is certainly another platform within the Second Life platform where my play/work as an avatar is challenged. It’s another metagame within what I feel is the ultimate in metagames.

Is it worth it? As we say on Tumblr, Fuck Yeah! How have I been writing so long and not had such wonderful responses in quantity and quality as I have experienced in the short time MU has been open? I am drinking of other amazing bloggers’ nectar and finding sustenance to overflowing. MU may disappear after June 30, but it will resonate in the depths of my heart for a long, long time.

Loved your blog post. Where do I sign up for a tour? I have been riding around campus on the bikes you can get at the coffe place. That’s a fun fast way to see the changes that happen every day around here.

The dojo is really a nice quiet spot in campus. I go there to slack and hide from izzy when she starts assigning work :D.

The bikes are amazing. You can get out of ANY pinch. Stuck in a mobius strip? Just pedal harder and you’ll fly out of there! Stuck in a prim maze? Ride faster! I haven’t checked to see if you can fly, but you can definitely make Y turns!

Thanks for the link to your blog post. What you said about your blog not being read by many of the people you know resonates for me. I have found that when I’m making art or writing or producing other creative work, I don’t need a huge audience. Just a few is ok. Most of the joy is in the act of creation itself + the magic ingredient of a friend or two who sees the work. With my studio at MU I know my neighbors will see

My writing passion changes like a river flowing at times. With blogging, whatever I’ve done has to be good enough as it is. I’ve gone back and deleted or hidden posts but I never edit them. Even when I write stories, they tend to be very narrative without much of a direction at all. With chronic pain, fatigue and varying degrees of brain fog, my writing is affected, of course. And that’s where habit and momentum come into play. When I can manage to do something I usually enjoy, why wait and wait until I feel at the top of my game to do it again? I don’t want to regret missing my life. I honestly feel benefits from just writing about whatever sparks my interest at the time, (or maybe what I need to get out). And who really can deal with interacting with a huge amount of readers in a blogging environment? It’s wonderful to come across writing by someone who has a clear and authentic sounding voice. And when I discover their writing, I’m pleased they have stuff to read from their past, that they didn’t give up along the way.

I had an acquaintance IM me last night reassuring me that she follows my writing and enjoys it. My heart just melted! It really does feed the passion to get someone to respond. Another blogger to whom I often link or quote (and make comments if nothing else, devoted a post to my Scripturient response: https://serenhaven.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/passion-or-what/

This is totally my approach too. (I’m not on Tumblr and can’t like or comment over there.)

I read other blogs, and my time is indeed valuable to me, so I consider doing so worthy of my attention. I do measure myself against other bloggers, mostly on a spectrum or map of opinion, and to where my beliefs are in relation to theirs at the moment. I can easily identify what I agree with, disagree with, what I don’t have a clue about and what makes me think or rethink something.

I barely register how I compare to how many followers, reblogs or likes other bloggers have. I make it a priority to respond to comments that I understand and which are relevant to what I’ve blogged about. And to be clear, I’m writing about the blog I’ve written since June 2012.

I’m thrilled when I get a comment that indicates a kind person has actually read what I’ve written, not a “Great job!!! Check out my stuff!!!”

No matter how much of a genius a blogger is, if they walk and talk like a narcissist, I’m not interested for long. We’re all busy but if there’s no connection, community or reciprocity ever, then I’m out.

I wouldn’t dream of changing who I am and how I blog based on the feedback, or lack thereof, that I get. We don’t have to all agree on things or be in cliques.

But really, writers who attempt blogging in a vacuum tend to quit, don’t they?

We do need to read widely enough to not be lost in our own echo chamber – or maybe being lost is fine???

But either way, I’ve read plenty of stuff on The Guardian or Huffington Post or insert-name-of-favorite-corporate-site-here, had a response, and then spent 20 minutes formulating my articulate response.

I refuse to do that any longer. Nobody cares about your insightful comment on TheGuardian.com. I think ideally focusing on a community of peeps is the most fruitful. It might be The Community of MU Bloggers, and it might be some other community that’s meaningful to you. But whatever it is, I think consistently interacting with that group represents the best chance of creating something powerful, exciting, and rewarding.

Those are great tips, Paypabak. I often neglect to get the notecard when I arrive at a place, so I am missing a good source of “words” to help in writing. I also want to mention that your blog looks so cool that I didn’t realize it was Tumblr—and for a beginning blogger, Tumblr is easy to use

Veyot: Tumblr is very easy to get started and yet rich in features, allowing me to add pages that are more or less static. I don’t care to spend a lot of time tweaking the platform, although I do try to update my static pages (blogroll, bio, even my Moonletters Index). I want to write not tweak.

Pearl, I know what you mean in terms of changing approaches to expressing myself. First Life throws curves at us that do affect our virtual selves and we do well not to resist them.In that way the platform we choose does need to match up with the use to which we put it. But this is getting ahead of the game! Next “lecture” will address the tools of the trade!

Great Lecture Paypabak! I especially liked your advice Get it all, and log off! (exclamation point, mine) I too feel so torn between wanting to be present in IMs, but also needing to prepare content and post it.

Some people use the SL “Busy” message, which seems like a decent idea, but I do want to be available and don’t want a sense that I’m too busy. Perhaps you’re right that writing time could go faster logged off. Even if you have to spend a minute or two of logging in to grab some detail, it might be worth it.

my first “lecture” on blogging. (It may be the only one. We shall see.)

You might post more “lectures”. And someone else might also post 1 or more. So Blogging Class might consist of several posts on multiple websites. Each post or lecture might be valuable by itself, but it also might be nice, for Blogging Class or any other class: VR Photo 1 etc, to have a Class Home page where students can see everything available, with links to go Read-Watch-Do, and discussion space.

How might these Class Home Pages look? A page here on MU/Talk with a collection of resources? Or should we collect elements here and put out an official page on the MU website for the course? The MU site is kind of like our University Catalog, so materials might go there. Or the speed & spontaneity of here. Or…

Thanks Paypabak, this is great and I also will be watching for more “lectures.” The underlying message I got from your first post was to be organized and to be disciplined! Thank you for sharing your blogging methodology and recipe for blogging success!

I am a mere blogger-in-residence and will leave the Big Brain concepts to my betters. I like posting to my blog–my count is my blife (sic), after all. It calls attention to MU to my myriad follows and allows for discussions either there or here. All this feedback has been wonderful. I am working on the next lecture, to be sure.

And I have reblogged again, hoping to uncover all the MU community members on Tumblr. Next, I will run over to the copy machine in Tiffany Mosienko’s studio at Camilla 15 and make some copies to pass out on campus.